Browsing All Posts filed under »Performance Poetry«

You know you have left only when you come home again. You are greeted by the smell of garlic in hot oil. Of the smell of your mother’s Sunday henna ritual. The smell of your grandmother’s evening flowers gently nagging your grandfather’s morning aftershave. You are warmed, welcomed, then shocked by the smell of your home, a smell that you […]

It has little to do with a surprise grandchild. But your mother does not want me in her house when she’s not around. Not because she’d have to hesitate before doing up your bed, or would be forced to have an explanation for the stray hair the maid found that is simply too long for […]

Cotton candy aftermaths. Slippery notes of 10. The prickle of stranger on a bus. Inevitability between man and woman. Static of silk and belly. The vase that got away. Etchings of brassiere straps. Calluses for absent play. 11AM sun of winter mornings. Bites of new E-string. The lure of knife’s edge. Wetness inside a ring. […]

In the season of presidential nominations, I’m running for a few designations – Writer. Poet. Photographer. Professional describer of feelings. High-intensity leer-evaporator. Smasher of nonsense ceilings. DF Wallace Quote Generator. Multiple bell-jar defeatist. The Antoinette of Drama Queenery. The Nilgiri winds of eye-mist. The atlas of all the right spots. Perpetual leaver of aunties aghast. […]

I’m not half a woman, I’m mostly sea. I’m not half a woman, I don’t need legs to complete me. I’m not an almost-whole Marilyn, Underground rails billowing my dresses, Haute couture of where I come from Is mostly sea-shell bras, and floating tresses. Come, live below sea- Level with me, Where there’s no doing […]

Our meeting begins At the valleys of your fingers. I squint, At the sunlight that squeezes between them. I look at the map, And find no way around the lines of your palms. Of course, I’m too proud to ask for directions. I trudge on, Dodging your fault lines, Climbing, Conquering, Your mound of Venus. […]

My morning cereal was all over the back of the van. My throat burned And my 6 year old eyes stung, In pain, in shame, And most of all – in pride. I had promised Mumma I wouldn’t cry. But all I wanted, What I really wanted, Was to let loose one sob, Just one, […]